On Saturday, the Coast Guard Captain of the Port in Charleston, South Carolina declared a safety zone on the Waccamaw River at the town of Conway, where flood waters have overtopped a defunct coal ash disposal pit.
Residual flooding from Hurricane Florence has led to widespread damage in the Carolinas, including another coal ash pit breach near Wilmington, N.C. At Conway, the Waccamaw's waters flooded a defunct, remediated coal ash pit at the former Grainger Generating Station site. Site operator Santee-Cooper...

Thailand has become one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to publish a full list of all its registered and licensed fishing vessels, alongside a watchlist containing vessels prohibited from fishing.
Making such information freely available is a crucial step in eradicating illegal fishing and human rights abuse in the industry, and marks Thailand out in the region for taking this progressive step, says the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).
Much of the fishing industry is at best opaque, and...

Last week engineering crews confirmed they had finished dismantling the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, deactivating its reactor and removing more than 680,000 kilograms of nuclear waste, which will now be sent to safer storage.
No, no. Not Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov, who officials there will proudly tell you is the world’s “first” floating nuclear power plant, and which workers are currently fueling and testing in Murmansk. Rather it’s the Sturgis, which was built in America and actually claimed the...

U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have signed a new trade agreement designed to increase U.S. auto exports.
Under the old U.S.–Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) signed in 2012, Trump says the U.S. trade deficit skyrocketed from $6.3 billion to $9.8 billion by 2017. Under the new arrangement, South Korea will double the annual number of American automobiles that can enter its market using U.S. safety standards. South Korea has also agreed to address issues with...

Oil traders with Mercuria and Trafigura warned Monday that U.S. sanctions on Iran could take two million barrels of crude per day off the market, leading prices to spike as high as $100 per barrel by the end of the year. J.P. Morgan predicted a slightly smaller supply reduction of 1.5 million bpd and a price rise to $85-90 per barrel.
In a statement, J.P. Morgan analysts said that "the main driver of this revision is a higher estimate of...

Container shipping giant CMA CGM believes that compliance with the 2020 sulfur cap will involve and additional average cost of $160 per TEU, based on current conditions.
The new IMO cap, effective January 1, 2020, will require all shipping companies to reduce their sulfur emissions by 85 percent, and CMA CGM is planning a mixed approach with the use of low sulfur fuel, the use of LNG for nine new ships it has on order and some scrubber retrofits.
The...

The CEOs of BP, Equinor, Shell and Total have agreed to join forces on human rights in their supply chains.
The objective of the initiative is to create an industry framework for human rights supplier assessments. Results of conducted assessments will be shared with the participating companies through an independent third party. Work is currently ongoing to establish the assessment criteria and sharing mechanism.
The desired outcome is to make it easier and more efficient for suppliers to demonstrate how...

Last week saw the annual observance of the National Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Recognition Day. Of the service’s three known MIAs, two may still be frozen in Greenland’s ice cap.
Like many selfless Coast Guardsmen, Lt. John Pritchard (left) and Petty Officer First Class Benjamin Bottoms, a radioman, went in harm’s way to save lives only to sacrifice their own. “Johnny” Pritchard graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1938 and earned his wings...

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has successfuly coordinated a multi-national search and rescue for injured solo yachtsman Abhilash Tomy.
An Indian Armed Forces P-8 aircraft sighted the stricken yacht SV Thuriya on Sunday approximately 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) west of Perth in remote seas and in bad weather.
AMSA tasked a French fisheries patrol vessel, FPV Osiris, to respond, and Tomy has now been rescued.
Tomy was participating in the Golden Globe Yacht Race and injured his back when his 10-meter (33-foot)...